Karl Redhand

A fast-moving tale set far in the future, of civilizations descended from earthly cultures spread among the stars. A green young officer is caught up in affairs of interstellar scope, thrown into the mud and blood of war of attrition, and forced to make a choice about where his ultimate loyalty lay. More

The two thousand year old Chayan Empire is dying. It is being torn asunder by rebellion, rotted from the inside by corruption. The desperate solution: Raise Lord Sangrama from the dead. Let him destroy the rebellions like he did the Chankallans a thousand years before, reviving the tottering Empire. It was a last-ditch, hare-brained scheme. Then came the complications: the rebels heard of the plan and raided Haben in force to kill Sangrama and the project. Then came the further complications: The raid failed in its objective. He got away. Complicating matters even further, they had cloned the wrong corpse. The man they had resurrected wasn't Sangrama.

Fred Pruitt is somebody's grampaw. He's retired from both the Army and from a second career. He has lived in many, though not all, parts of the world. He read Robert Heinlein from about the time he was twelve, starting with his boys' books, through Stranger in a Strange Land. He has read The Virginian three times, and enjoys Raphael Sabatini. He's enjoying retirement by writing his own books about people he's known, putting them in situations they were never in in real life.